


Card Trick

by flippyspoon



Series: Sometimes When it Snows [2]
Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Friendship, Friendship/Love, M/M, Romantic Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-24
Updated: 2013-05-24
Packaged: 2017-12-12 20:08:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/815526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flippyspoon/pseuds/flippyspoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jimmy is sad.  Thomas cheers him up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Card Trick

Jimmy missed his parents. This didn’t happen often. The good thing about a life in service was that it kept you so bloody busy all the time, that you didn’t have much opportunity to think of what you were missing in life or what you had already lost. He sat in the servants’ hall shuffling and reshuffling his deck of cards. His tea had gone cold. At the other end of the table Alfred and Ivy spoke in low voices. But Mr. Barrow sat diagonally to Jimmy, smoking and reading his paper.

The melancholy had begun that morning at breakfast because Alfred had received a letter from his mother and then crowed about how his parents had done over their cottage. Which was fine. A person was entitled to speak about such things. Anna had specifically asked after his family. Then later that afternoon in the kitchen, Ivy had spoken of her own mother who was proud of her daughter working in a great house. By that time, Jimmy gotten himself into a sour mood and when she asked him what he thought of it and batted her eyes, he muttered something cutting and stormed off.

“You want to play a hand?” Mr. Barrow said. Jimmy blinked up at him. He had the feeling Mr. Barrow might have said this more than once. But he nodded in reply as the smoke cleared. He dealt them for Honeymoon Gin.

Jimmy knew card tricks because his father had taught him card tricks when he was a child.

Daisy, Jimmy thought suddenly. Daisy didn’t have any family. Or at least none she wanted to talk about. But then, Daisy had her father-in-law, Mr. Mason, who she went to visit at the farm. From the way she spoke of him, he was a good as a real father to her. Then there was Mr. and Mrs. Bates. Anna had no family that Jimmy knew of. He had heard that Mr. Bates’ mother had died years ago. They had each other and would probably have children soon. Mrs. Patmore had family somewhere. She mentioned them from time to time. And Mrs. Hughes and Mr. Carson… Jimmy wasn’t sure about them. They were practically married to each other though. He knew Mr. Carson considered the Crawleys to be like his family. Jimmy couldn’t even wrap his brain around that notion.

Everybody had family somewhere.

“It’s your draw,” Mr. Barrow said.

_Oh…right. Mr. Barrow._

Jimmy started to say something, but played a card instead. He started to speak again but stopped.

“What’ve you got on your mind?” Mr. Barrow said wryly.

“Oh,” Jimmy said. “Well… Have you got family, Mr. Barrow? I mean parents or…?”

Mr. Barrow’s expression didn’t alter, but he didn’t respond quickly, which Jimmy took as a measure of surprise. Jimmy tapped his fingers on the table and drove a nail into a gap between the wood grains.

“Everyone has parents had some point,” Mr. Barrow cracked. “Not sure how we’d get here otherwise.”

Jimmy sighed and found himself disappointed at the brush off. He would go to sleep tonight and probably dream that his parents were still alive. That happened sometimes when he was in such a mood. For a moment, upon waking, he would expect to receive a letter from his mother. Until he remembered again, just as he put his bare feet to the cold floor of his room.

“They’ve passed,” Thomas said, shifting his cards around in his hand. “Years ago. Before I came to Downton.”

“Right,” Jimmy said. “Eh, sorry. You father was a clockmaker, wasn’t he?”

“Mmmhmm.” Thomas played a card. It was a bad play and Jimmy would easily pull ahead.

“You like clocks well enough,” Jimmy said. “You must’ve liked him.”

“Would’ve preferred to be raised by the clocks,” Mr. Barrow muttered.

Jimmy wondered at that comment. But maybe it wouldn’t do to get too personal.

“He wasn’t awful,” Mr. Barrow said, correcting himself. “But you know how fathers are. Why my mum married him, I’ve no idea.”

In Jimmy’s experience, fathers were basically good. Coldly dismissive occasionally, but well meaning. He’d been taught not to complain about such things. Most people had it worse. And there had been some good times with his parents. His mother had insisted on teaching him to sew, claiming it would come in useful someday. He thought of the two of them hunched over a trouser seam under lantern light as she showed him different stitches. His thick hands could never quite get the hang of it. Now his fingers twitched atop the table with the sense memory of all those needle pricks. His mother with the long strawberry blonde hair always tight up in a bun as she hummed a tune. Maybe that’s why he didn’t mind Ivy so much.

Jimmy said, “My mum told me she married my father because he smiled when he played the piano.” Thomas had been about to play a card and his hand stopped in the middle of its gesture as he frowned. Jimmy’s eyes were on the jack of clubs; the mustachioed half-man mirroring the double beneath him. “She said he seemed so pleased with himself, she was curious to find out why. Then she fell in love with him and wanted to see if she could please him half as much.”

When he looked up Mr. Barrow was staring at him, but his eyes darted away to his own cards and he said, “And did she?”

“Did she what?”

“Did she please him half as much?”

“They were happy,” Jimmy said, and he was annoyed by how sad his voice sounded. He didn’t want to be pathetic, least of all in front of Mr. Barrow, who might think he needed comfort or something equally ridiculous. He cleared his throat and sat up straight, playing a card without even looking at what it was. “Until, you know, the war and all.”

“You miss them,” Thomas declared.

“Ah. Well…” He smiled easily as if none of it were serious. He shouldn’t have brought such a thing up. It wasn’t as if he wanted to talk about it. He and Mr. Barrow were only recently friends. Yet he couldn’t exactly deny that he was sorry not to have family.

 _Oh, well done you_ , he thought. _See how much he bloody cares?_

“It’d be nice to get a letter now and then,” Jimmy said, shrugging. “More than once a year from a cousin. I think they only keep in touch because they feel they have to and… Ugh, never mind, bloody…” He shifted around in his seat and pushed his hair back. It was all a terrible tell. Mr. Barrow would be offering to sing him a lullaby next. He hadn’t intended for the conversation to go this way.

But Mr. Barrow only put his cards down to light another cigarette and then said, “Maybe you should get a pen pal, aye?”

“A…pen pal?” Jimmy said blankly. Alfred and Ivy left the table and Thomas glanced at them as they went off.

“If you want to get letters,” Thomas said, smirking. “They’ve got em’ in the back of magazines, you know? You strike it lucky and you could be sharing witty correspondence with some twelve year-old in Kilkenny or somewhere. Oh, what’s it like where you are, Jimmy? Rainy and green. What’s it like where you are, Patty? Rainy and green.”

Jimmy laughed and sat back, shuffling his hand of cards. “Yeah, sounds plenty witty.”

“They’d all be about polishin’ silver and shearin’ sheep,” Thomas said, blowing smoke. “But they’d be letters alright.”

Jimmy chuckled again and said, “With my luck I’d get some religious sort tryin’ to convert me.”

Thomas guffawed. “Eh, don’t feel bad. I only get letters from my cousin in India and they’re all the same. It’s hot again. More curry.”

It brought another peal of laughter and Jimmy slapped his forehead.

“Besides,” Thomas went on. “You take Alfred, sure he’s got letters. But ya know his family can hardly stand him. His are probably all soppy about Ivy. Ah, the blushing rose of her cheeks…”

Jimmy’s face hurt from laughing and he rubbed his jaw to relieve it.

“Oh Ivy,” Thomas said. “Her lips are like pillows of satin spun by lovely worms.”

“Worms don’t make satin,” Jimmy said, coughing and grinning.

“Yeah, but he doesn’t know that. Or else he’s got letters from O’Brien in India. It’s hot. More curry.”

“Ha!” Jimmy slammed a fist on the table and shook his head. Jimmy smiled up at Mr. Barrow who looked quite pleased with himself. But not half so pleased as Jimmy was.


End file.
